This image was a kind of self-imposed challenge – I totally fell in love with an incredible book called The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and as a tribute, I wanted to try and recreate a scene from the book. Usually my images evolve as I work on them, often ending up only vaguely resembling the original idea, but with this, I set myself a very specific brief – Pat’s amazing words – and set about trying to make it real. It was a really challenging exercise, and I loved doing it. Took about 2 weeks of my spare time I think.

As always, there is a mixture of a ton of painting and my own shots – the Draccus is painted from scratch, referencing various beasties from hippos to rhinos to monitor lizards. The way the creature is described is quite simple, there’s nothing particularly ‘dragon-like’ about it, no unnecessary adornments etc – just a giant armour-plated herbivore lizard who breathes crackling blue fire. I don’t want to spoil the scene at all, so I’ll leave the interpretation up to you guys - I cannot recommend this stunning book enough!